Ya, I was lucky. I went up. My previously ignored (no PR) blog got a 1!!!!! And my main site went from 2 to 3. Nothing to write home about but better than...

Does it really matter though?

Congrats Matt, a 3 is very respectable.  As far as it mattering.  PageRank is only an indicator of how much Google trusts your site.  It doesn't affect your search engine positioning or anything else.  But, if you do happen to notice it falling... take note and make some corrections because it will start to affect how Google treats you down the road.

I kept my 5 but have to say I had just as much business activity from my blog when it was a 3.  Page rank only seems to matter to other bloggers.  I am not selling ads and there isn't a blog with content just like mine that is coming up first in searches because of a higher page rank.  As a re-blogger I find that my obsession with content takes me further than page rank. 

I have a question for you Mary. How does Google decide between text links that sell Page Rank, and text links that sell products?

Certainly, text link advertising is the core of Google's business. I personally have a classified section on my blog that is clearly marked as advertising, but uses text links. How does Google differentiate, or does it?

My page rank for lenderama is the same 5 as it has been for a while. Since many mariah.com sites went up over the last week (Blog Fiesta went from 0 to 4, REMBEX went from 4 to 5, my training wiki went from 0 to 4), I assume lenderama was reveiwed as well.

My fall must have happened in the last few days.  But I just checked my site for key search terms and I moved up 4 or 5  spots on page 1, which is more valuable to me than my former 5.  I was the only pr 5 site in my market.  There are not many 4's either.

I don't read much about SEO.  I just blog.  Actually, I have run into trouble by trying to interpret and implement geekspeak about canonicalization and other things I never knew would matter to sell real estate. 

I will gladly accept your offer of free seo advice.  The only thing I can tell that I have done wrong is link to lower ranking sites.   I reluctantly removed my blogroll from the front page more than a month ago.

Maureen,

Thank you for being so gracious.  I completely agree that SERP is far more important than PR.  It sounds like you have already removed the blogroll which would be my first suggestion - but I will shoot you an email with some of my secrets that will defintiley put you back where you belong in the next Google sweep.

My blog's PR actually went up 1 point from 2 to 3 and I haven't written a post in 3 months... not purposely. I am moving my blog from wordpress.com to a wordpress blog hosted on my site (wanted to save the new posts for the new blog that will be live tomorrow).

I am afraid that I am going to lose that PR rating when I move the blog over. Worse, I afraid of getting penalized for duplicate content when I move the old posts over to the new blog. Any ideas on how to keep my PR and not get slapped when I move those posts over? Ideas anyone?

My Blogger blog jumped 2 points from a PR2 to a PR4.. so I'm very happy.. but this also means it's probably time for a real blog with more bells and whistles

I dropped a point on the homepage to a 4, ah well, at least SERPs have stayed the same and/or improved as well as having a big interior PR jump. One of my friends noticed the top ranking sites in his area all dropped but retained their ranking position.

How some got those big hairy Google knuckles.

Some one links to you, and someone links to them, and someone links to them who bought a link. That page got the back hand and the PR floated on down the line.

I still think PR is big, but it is not something to obsess over especially since anything that Goolge says about it (the PR bar backlinks ) is deceiving.

Well my baby blog went from 0 to 2. But more importantly to me is that in less than 4 months it is on page 1 of Google for Albuquerque NM Real Estate though I do see it drop to #12 every so often. But normally sits at #10. Now if I can just push it up the page instead of sitting at the bottom.

Glenn,

It is interesting that you feel that one must choose between Page 1 SERP and PR.  Many sites have and maintain both, this site included.  If your homepage PR is falling that is an indicator that something is wrong and warrants correction.

Also, be aware that PR is not directly considered when Google ranks sites in the SERPS. 

Search Ranking Factors can be found here

The Cliffs Notes Version:

If you want high rank high for a competitive term, then you need to be well optimized throughout your site, with a primed linking structure internally. I am sure Mary has tons of info this site on how to optimize your pages and site.

You will need links coming into your optimixed page from a bevy of webpages with a variance of page rank values.

If you want to figure it out from a linking perspective, find the top 10 or 20 pages ranking for your term.

List them in excel.

List the url, the page rank, the number of links, the anchor text of the link to your competitor, and the age of the links. Do the same and then better. Wait for it to age, and chances are very good you will rank higher for that term someday.

But while you are doing that, a smart competitor will get ranked for tons of other non compeitive keywords lol!

Right before this happened, I changed my domain name so that it showed up without the "blogspot.com" at the end. My PR3 went down to non-existent. After google "slap", my PR became a zero, which I guess is better than not being recognized at all. But I am wondering, does Google see my site as a brand new site, even though a year's worth of content had already been indexed? Since you speak about "trusting" a site, in Google terms, wouldn't they have a way of knowing that my site has been around for a while and is trust worthy?  I dropped out of all first page results when I made the change too, and now cannot be seen anywhere. Agghhh!

I was lucky that my site stayed the same page rank, but I know people that their page rank went from 5 to 2. That teach us a lesson that quality weight more than quantity.